6:00am Tuesday 9th March 2010
By Tom Guest
WORCESTER Warriors’ new signings for next season do not have relegation release clauses drawn into their Sixways contracts, according to general manager Charlie Little.
The club have already made a string of impressive signings to bolster the squad for next season, but it is still far from certain as to which division they will be playing in.
However, Little insists the new signings do not have get-out clauses in their contracts should the unthinkable happen and Worcester find themselves disappearing through the Guinness Premiership trapdoor.
Little explained: “Every player we have here is on a standard Premier Rugby Limited (PRL) contract, which is approved legally and no changes, such as relegation release clauses, are written into them. A club wouldn’t put a relegation release clause into a standard PRL contract.
“We operate with standard PRL contracts. As a club, we will not put a relegation release clause into a contract and that applies to current players and future signings.”
Warriors director of rugby Mike Ruddock has already announced the captures of Luke Rooney, Neil Best, Andy Goode, Bruce Douglas and Adam Balding, who are all set to arrive on board next season, and the Sixways club insist they will be arriving come what may.
Warriors are currently 11th in the 12-team division, two points ahead of Sale Sharks, who have a game in hand.
Saturday’s 14-11 defeat at Harlequins, combined with on-song Leeds’ victory over Saracens, saw the Yorkshire battlers leap-frog Worcester, but Sale’s loss to Northamp-ton Saints plunged them to the foot of the table.
In public, though, the powers-that-be at Sixways are refusing to even contemplate the prospect of relegation, instead prefering to point to their favourable end-of-season run-in.
The Sixways side have four of their remaining six league games on home soil, while the two away matches are at Sale and Leeds, so they are in control of their own destiny.
Ruddock said: “We are looking up the table rather than down. We have to win our home games and beat the tea-ms around us in the league.”
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